Several nights ago, Mam and Dad were just snuggling down at 10:34pm, tired and worn out from the madness of the day. The last light had been extinguished and the 'goodnights' been said, when out of the silence came the noise now familiar to us all, the buzzing and flapping of an insect SOMEWHERE in the room.
Well, Mam didn't even open an eye, but uttered the words "End it" to Dad, who promptly - as he's a man who is fully aware of his small but non-the-less time consuming household jobs list - shot out of bed and turned on the lamp.
(His job list includes
- Rouge insects in the house - any time, any place
- The Bin - Weekly but with a complex recycling schedule
- Poos in the bath - anyone's, any time)
His conclusion was that said insect - he suspected moth - was trapped behind the head board of the bed and, despite wielding the bedside lamp and climbing up the head board he couldn't actually see it.
Mam wasn't having any of that and gave a muffled instruction of 'Don't get back in til it's gone' to which Dad replied 'Well, I can't do that with you still IN the bed - I need to move the whole thing out'. Mam was having non of THAT and, peering out from under the duvet said 'Oh, no, just pull up the mattress and poke your hand through the lats.' to which Dad only reiterated his previous point.
Seeing there was no other way round it - her suggestion that Dad crawl under the bed with his lamp rather like his mining forefathers before him, fell on deaf ears - and so she did yield and got out of the bed.
With much of the bedroom furniture now strategically placed like set from Midsummer Murders, Dad lifted the mattress and instructed her to 'Just hold this'. Waving his lamp like a lightsabre and climbing onto the lats like he'd just boarded the Death Star, he stuck his head bravely through the head board in search of the creature.
Sadly, the up-ending of the mattress meant the edge had now started to rest on the switch for Mam's bedside lamp, plunging, briefly, most of the room into darkness, and then alighting again only to go off again mere seconds afterwards. This disco continued for some minutes until Mam, in an effort to stop the strobe affect, tried to adjust her hold of the mattress and only managed to shout the words,
'I'M COMING DOOOOOOOOOWWWNNN'
before the weigh of the mattress took both it and her over the bed and on top of dad - Dad still with his head between the lats and left manically trying to place his lamp back on the bedside table from the none-memory foam side of his bed - had now come face to face with the intruder.
When he was finally extracted - his rescue hindered by Mam's hysteria (although it sounded a lot like just laughing) - it turned out to be a Daddy Long Legs, who had managed to free himself in the fracas and was now dancing on the ceiling. Dad's only words were 'What were you talking about? "I'm coming down" made no sense - you could have shouted anything else and I would have got out the way...'
In Mam's defence she only got part-way through her sentence before she was catapulted over the bedframe 'I'm coming down with the mattress, the weigh has shifted' would have been enough information for Dad to take evasive action, sadly he only heard the muffled sound of laughter as he was pinned to the underside of his own bed.
